My Amazon Review of Andrea Wulf's "The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World"

 Ecological Explorer

 

Although I have been to Humboldt County in California and heard of Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift, I had never heard of Alexander von Humboldt until I read Andrea Wulf’s book. Shame on me! As Wulf recounts our entire concept of nature in the 21^st Century is derived from the works of this very extraordinary 19^th Century polymath. Well before science became siloed up, Humboldt was involved at the cutting edge of botany, biology, evolution, geography, and meteorology. His works inspired Darwin, Thoreau and Muir and coined the term “cosmos” to describe the universe.

 

There must have been something in the water in the nearby cities of Jena and Weimar, Germany in the 1790’s where Humboldt attended the University of Jena. He frequently conversed with great author Goethe and the playwright Friedrich Schiller. A few years later Hegel would witness the “end of history” with Napoleon’s victory over the Prussian army at the Battle of Jena. It was at Jena that Humboldt solidified his interest in the natural world.

 

He then embarks on his first great adventure to South America. Braving swamps, crocodiles, snakes, disease, tropical heat, and the extreme cold of the heights of Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador bringing back samples of flora and fauna.  If you thought the Lewis and Clark expedition up the Missouri River at around the same time was one of “undaunted courage,” Humboldt’s expedition takes that to the power of ten. The writeup of his journey along the Orinoco River in Venezuela makes him famous. He would soon meet Thomas Jefferson James Madison, many of the crowned heads of Europe, and the revolutionary Simon Bolivar, who would ultimately disappoint him.

 

Humboldt was and “1848er” fifty years ahead of his time. He was a republican through and through despising Spanish colonialism, slavery, and the treatment of Indigenous people in the Americas.  Despite his strong republican beliefs his status as scientist was so high that the monarchies of Europe accepted him, including the Czar who financed his trip to Siberia when he was in his late fifties.

 

By viewing nature as an integrated whole, Humboldt could be characterized as the world’s first ecologist. He understood how small changes in the environment could have very serious long-term consequences and saw before most the problems caused by deforestation. I owe a debt of gratitude to Andrea Wulf for bringing the life of this very important man to me. It is a shame that we lost the heritage of this great German scientist as a consequence of anti-German feelings brought about by World War I.

For the full Amazon URL see: Ecological Explorer (amazon.com)